TESTS on dried blood samples taken from the wreckage of the car in which Princess Diana died have provided crucial new clues.

The former police chief investigating the tragedy has revealed that British officers have discovered a wealth of new forensic evidence.

“The car still contains substantial amounts of dried blood, from which, with leading-edge technology, we have the opportunity to gain valuable information,” Lord Stevens said.

The revelation comes just days after he disclosed that new witnesses to the Paris crash have been located and interviewed.

His team of 10 special investigators has been examining the wreckage of the Mercedes S280 at Camberley in Surrey.

Having pulled the vehicle apart “bolt by bolt”, samples of dried blood have been put through a wealth of tests by forensic scientists.

Sources close to the investigation believe the results will provide more evidence that the Princess was pregnant by her lover Dodi Fayed, who also died in the crash.

And the critical new forensic tests will reveal the precise physical state of driver Henri Paul when the car crashed in the Pont d’Alma tunnel. Dodi’s father Mohamed Al Fayed has always maintained that samples of blood from the dead chauffeur were switched by security services in a bid to pass off the deaths as a simple road accident.

While the French authorities only dealt with the crash as a “tragic incident”, Lord Stevens said he was leaving no stone unturned.

“Our inquiry is far more complex, and covers all the relevant conspiracy theories and allegations that have floated over the intervening years,” he said.

“There is a great deal of work to be done, but my hope is that the final inquest will be held towards the end of 2006.”

Revolutionary techniques have enabled British officers to construct a virtual reality film of what happened – from the moment Diana left The Ritz Hotel to the time the car crashed in the Paris underpass in August 1997.

The video reconstruction will be part of a preliminary report expected to be presented to the Royal Coroner Michael Burgess in August. It has yet to be decided if the video will ever be made public.

But in a new chapter for his book Not For The FaintHearted, Lord Stevens explains and defends the methods he has used in investigating Diana’s death.

The former head of the Metropolitan Police force told how examining the abundance of dried blood samples in the car was helping him arrive at answers to a number of key questions.

He added: “Forensic processes have advanced so far in the eight years since the fatal crash that we can now use computers to recreate every detail of the vehicle’s progress on the final stages of its last journey, using virtual reality techniques, and model exactly what happened to it from the damage it sustained.”

Mr Al Fayed has long contended the deaths of his son and the Princess were the result of an Establishment plot to kill them.

Lord Stevens findings will be made public when the inquest into the Princess’s death is finally opened, either later this year or early in 2007._________________Diana, Princess of Wales is and always will be The People's Princess.
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